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*** Harvey Danger

KING JAMES VERSION

(London)

Harvey Danger, the Seattle quartet that scored a major modern-rock breakthrough with the single “Flagpole Sitta” on their debut CD, are back with King James Versionü another rousing and irreverent collection of smartly barbed guitar-driven pop songs. Singer/guitarist Sean Nelson hasn’t lost his knack for delivering cleverly loaded lines like “I told her that everything she does is divine/And she replied with a blank expression” (“Why I’m Lonely”) with disarming charm. He’s no one-shtick pony — “Meetings with Remarkable Men,” which name-drops Jesus, Morrissey, and Kip Winger, does reprise the fuzz-box stomp of “Flagpole Sitta.” But the band shift gears for the stripped-down melancholy of “Pike Street/Park Place,” a piano-based ballad that finds Nelson revealing a more sensitive side. A ’60s-style organ hook opens “Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo” before giving way to some Pixiesish guitar racket augmented by smooth background harmonies. “(Theme from) Carjack Fever” features an odd barrage of imagery (“The moon is a toenail/The stars are a guardrail/My heart is a sandpail”) and a recurring melody that recalls the theme from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Nelson’s verbal potshots can be a little caustic (check the rant that closes “Authenticity”), but you don’t have to agree with what he’s saying to enjoy the hooks, melodies, and unbridled enthusiasm that cut through King James Version.

— Tom Demalon